Love Is....

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Today, I decided to take it easy
and work on physical therapy in the pool today.
First, I got into the really hot therapy pool to get all stretched out
and then I went to the big pool. They
have these cool foam “water weights” that add resistance to your workout and it
really works. Later, as I was aqua
jogging in the big pool, Heath was swimming laps. I am working with him to help him with his
stroke as he is learning how to swim competitively. Go Heath!
Learning how to swim is no easy task. I started swimming a year ago January and I
can remember wondering how I was ever going to swim a ½ mile in open
waters. I just had to keep forcing
myself to get into the pool and practice.
The biggest thing for me was to keep struggling through it and not give
up. Most things that I put my mind to, I
have been able to do, but this whole swimming thing was a humbling experience.

At work, we sat through another
insurance seminar which was, again, excellent!
The topic today was ‘OSHA Inspection Training.’ We had seven guys from Stateline attend the
conference. Since, I am on a first name
basis with our insurance rep (I guess this is what happens when you talk every day because something new always
arises), we got a lot of our questions answered by the guest speakers.

I got to see the tail end of
Andrew’s track meet tonight as I arrived in Mitchell a little later than I
expected. I saw him in his last race of
5, the 4x200 meter relay. Tonight, he
told me that his three favorite things are:
1. His mom and his dad 2. Track 3. Basketball. Supper with the boys and off to my Home Sweet Home in God’s country! J

Right before I left Mitchell, I got a text from a very good friend of mine from
vet school, Mr. Nick Henning. I called
him on my drive home and we got to get caught up. It was so great to be able to do that. They are entering a very intense time of the
year as spring break just ended and they are getting back into the groove of
things as the semester is rapidly coming to a close. I am so proud of my whole class for sticking
with it day in and day out. Don’t ever
give up! Call me anytime you need
support!!

Monday, March 25, 2013

First day of spinning for the
spring session. I have been looking
forward to this since I moved back to the area.
Roger and Wendy are our instructors for the morning session and they are
so fun and inspirational. It’s fun to do
group workouts, especially since I already know most of the people in the class
from before. I waited to start this spring
session because I wanted to allow my hip some time to rest/heal. After 6 or 7 weeks of physical therapy,
nothing seems better. It did feel better
for a short time period, but it’s BACK!
I found out this weekend, that the more time I take off and don’t use
it, the more it hurts.

Soooo……I went to spinning this
morning with the intentions to not push it very hard and to just stay seated
the whole time. Well, I did not push it
to the max, but I sure did not stay seated!
It felt so good to be back on the bike with the music pumping and being
surrounded by old friends. Heath let me
use his heart rate monitor that his son got him for Christmas! I don’t know if he will ever get it back; it
is awesome! I’m kidding, I couldn’t do
that! It was a great way to start my
day!

More of the same at work, dealing
with “big girl” things and having to deal with confrontation and sometimes
uncomfortable situations, but I feel like we are making big strides. This is my cheering squad! :)

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Today, was great. I was able to sleep in a little bit! I was just relaxing when Heath stopped by around 9 or so. We were just sitting there when we saw a great big semi slow waaaay down on Stegall Road. Our first thought was that the dogs were out in the road, but with a second look, we found something waaaay different. The neighbor horses were frantically running their fence line and there was another horse on this side of the fence, running along side of them. Yep, sure enough, I recognized that back white sock the moment I saw it. Miss Penney! Crazy girl! I threw on some clothes and hollered at Heath to grab her halter (which I had run right out the door without it). He got in the pickup while I was grabbing her bridle, just in case. I hopped into the truck and he dropped me off on one side of her as he gently rolled up a bit further to cut off that option. She was pretty panicked until we could ease her off the edge of the shared fence line with our neighbor horses. Once she reached the end, and they turned the other way, thankfully I was able to walk right up to her. Good girl! I walked her most of the way home and then hopped on her bareback and rode her up the drive, saddled her, checked her for wounds, and then tied her up while I checked my corrals.

She had broken out a board on a gate in the corrals. She had a few minor scratches and I doctored them as soon as I found them. Heath said that he could fix the corral for me, he just needed to get a few screws from his dad. He called over and they invited us for lunch! It was a happily accepted offer! Heath drove over with Mya and I rode Penney over. She did great! Pretty much a dream of mine....having someone help me fix my fence, riding her across the rolling prairie for lunch, and then enjoying the company of good friends!~

Friday, March 15, 2013

This is so sad, this was on KNEB today. My old home sweet home on Highland caught fire. I was so very sad to get this news. I need to call the old owners who lived there for over 54 years and where they raised their family. This is so sad! I cannot even believe it! I had so many good memories there!

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Today, Heath and I went to a Food Safety conference with our insurance company. It was held at the Hampton Inn in Scottsbluff, the lunch they served was excellent, by the way. We both learned alot and realized how important food safety is to our business. We have lots to do, but we will get it accomplished because we have the backing of our board and our management team.

Our next item on the agenda today was a house inspection on the potential largest purchase of my life so far. Heath came with me after work to meet with the home inspector. I was not impressed by the inspector because he did not inspect up to code, but other than that, all the big things checked out well. I am so excited to keep moving forward with this purchase!

Last, but not least, we went back to the office to eat leftovers from lunch today that they gave us. Then, we headed over to Connie and Ernie's house for our Crazy Love Bible study. Embarrassing as it was, both Heath and I were blatantly falling asleep while Ernie was speaking. I felt so bad, Ernie even said extra prayers for us because he knew how tired we were. Heath and I both made it to the gym for the morning session three of the four days this week so far! Makes for an early morning, but is so great to get up and get it out of the way early and feel good all day!

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Wednesday's Justin and Andrew get to have dinner with their grandparents, so Heath and I get to spend some time together. This week, I went over to his house and Briggs, Mya, and I all went running on the ditch bank. It was a fabulous run with the light lingering longer and longer each evening! The weather was perfect and this was a new trail for us to explore. About half way through Mama called and I just put her on speaker and we kept running. A few goat heads and me carrying Mya over the cattle guard later, we were back in the yard. Heath had supper ready for us when we returned! So sweet!

Monday, March 11, 2013

Monday's are my evening at home to work on my pictures and play with Miss Penney. Tonight, I got to hop on Penney bareback and ride her for a few minutes around the corral! It was fun! Then, Briggsy and I went inside and did some chores and I got to work on pictures! What a great evening! I really like spending time with my animals at my house! :)

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Well, I was up by 5:15 am, so much for "sleeping in." LOL! My body is just used to this timing, so I got up and ate left over zucchini bread from last night (with ice cream) and worked on some things in the house! Don't judge, it is Saturday, after all ice cream is dairy, right?! After a little while I went back to bed to read, something I haven't done for fun in a really long time.

I'd say, oh, about 10 am or so, I get a call from Heath that Pa (Gary) was coming over. I was still lounging in my P.J.'s, so as quickly as I had answered, I hung up and ran for my room to put on some real clothes. By the time I had gotten back to the laundry room to change the laundry, Pa was there. :) I had mentioned earlier in the week that I would like to help him and Heath put in the new flooring in Heath's house. So, I left my laundry undone and frantically left the house with Gary.

As you can see from the picture, I got quite a bit of snow at my house out in Stegall. Gary and I both had our Muck's on and when we got to town, the boys were wondering why since they didn't hardly have any white on the ground at all.

We had a great morning, we went to get measurements at Heath's house and then went all over town finding parts, supplies, and getting things together. When we got back to the house, Shane, Justin, and Andrew all helped us get the floor in and clean up the house, ALOT! They were so helpful and the floor looks great! Go Team!

Friday, March 8, 2013

We had so much fun tonight! Morgan and Ashley came over to eat with me. I didn't realize it was going to be us girls, so I invited Heath. He did great putting up with all of our girl catch-up talk! We had lots to catch up on and it was alot of fun. I was sad that Katie couldn't make it due to the impending blizzard! It better snow alot tonight!

Ashley, Mo, and I all ran Deadwood together last year!I didn't get a picture with Ashley!Heath and Wiley cheered us on!

I look forward to many more nights with my girlfriends here in Nebraska! Time goes so fast and weeks just fly by, so it is important that we schedule such evenings! ToTALLy awesome!

Thursday, March 7, 2013

I went to my buddy at Logoz today in town and he has offered his services to help me build my logo. I want to use this as my watermark on all my photos as well as eventually be able to create a stamp and other things to personalize my work. It's coming together!

My Office at Work

Tomorrow night, Katie is coming from Fort Collins, Colorado and Morgan and her husband Wiley are coming from Torrington, Wyoming for supper. I am making ham, green beans, sweet potato fries, apple Snicker salad, and zucchini bread. I am looking forward to catching up with friends. I hope the impending blizzard doesn't stop them.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

We made 118 cookies this week to bring to church tonight to feed the AWANA volunteers. Dr. and Mrs. Ernie and Connie Bussinger asked us to help. We were honored to be able to do so. She made chili with 25 pounds of meat! We ended up serving around 50-60 people. It was really fun!

This is Bill Senkel's photo, Heath's brother. I am using it to show off his work. I just love the idea of the quote on such a gorgeous picture. Motivates me!

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

So, on Sunday, I was working on my website at Heath's house after church (he has internet :). As I was working on getting it hosted with Wix.com, Andrew came up and asked me what I was doing. I told him that I had been researching photography hosting websites and I had come up with this one which I was currently working on. He brought up an excellent question, "Can't they just right-click and save your pictures?" Why yes they can. Thanks to him, I continued my research and ended up with another website designed specifically for pictures.

There is a commission with each photo you sell, but it goes directly to the printer and then right on to the customer, if you so choose. You can also do "self-fulfilled" orders where we can build the log frames and fill the order ourselves. Totally worth it. I just need to get it up so I can display my photos. So excited about new venture. I've been talking about it for years, time to do it!

I had physical therapy this morning and it went well. Slowly but surely. I'm not in the agony I was when I started P.T., now back to doing whatever I want and still just feel the dull pain. My physical therapist is encouraged by my progress and we are only meeting once a week now!

As I was sitting with heat on my hip this morning at P.T., I started talking with the gentleman next to me. He is a photographer and we got to chatting. He has a full time job and does photography on his on the side. How encouraging to have another contact to discuss ideas with! So exciting! :)

Monday, March 4, 2013

I have been waiting anxiously to hear from the bank. My Uncle Mike and cousin Tim both called me within four minutes of each other today. They can do the loan! I have to get my car sold before anything happens though. Hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday I can get an ad in the local paper. It's in great shape, so I hope to sell it quickly. My backup plan is to find a dealer who will give me something for it. It may not be ALL I want to get for it, but at least it would be a down payment and I wouldn't have to worry about selling it myself!

This weekend I was in some weird funk and wasn't really motivated to do anything. It was actually a blessing in disguise because I got my camera out and started learning about it. Thanks to inspiration from my good friend Mittie Mae, I came out with some pretty cool pictures!

Tonight I went to Andrew, Justin, and Shane's winter band concert. They all did great! Then, we made supper! :)

Friday, March 1, 2013

Today is the day I hear from my bank about the loan I want to get on that little farm/ranch I have been looking at lately. The owner is so AWESOME and is really pulling for me. He really wants me to have it and his wife even offered to come help me clean it up! Such a wonderful family! He has another guy looking at it, so I do not want to keep him waiting because that is not fair. I really just want to commit and then get serious about selling my car.

FOR SALE: 2012 Hyundai approximately 27,000 miles on it....all wheel drive!